Thread by @tepsaeu

Welcome to Plenary 2: "The EU and the #COVID19 Pandemic"

Our moderator @MichaelKaeding from @unidue welcomes Carlos Gaspar of @iprinova, Jim Cloos of @EUCouncil, and @Poli_Eleonora of @IAIonline

Here are the highlights⤵️

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The floor goes immediately to Jim Cloos, who begins his presentation with three introductory remarks, before giving a history of the July agreement, and his assessment of the road ahead

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"The Council is a club of national leaders with national political resources. If you look at the Council's crisis management over the last twelve years, we have always been in crisis mode"

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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"The first stage is always a little bit of chaos, and then stop-gap measures. In #COVID19, response was made difficult by the lack of European competences in health"

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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"The second stage is for the Council to try to set a framework, and the third is to make decisions and implement them within the framework"

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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"Of course, the Council is central, but we cannot operate without the other Institutions or the Member States"

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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"At the beginning of #COVID19, everyone had to take quick measures at the national level, which made it difficult to organised meetings due to border closures"

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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"In the initial meetings we looked at key areas: trying to limit #COVID19's spread, getting PPE, start work on vaccines, socio-economic effects"

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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"In the second meeting, we had a negotiated statement to set out in paper how we would steer the Union in thus difficult phase, setting the framework on the basis of these key areas"

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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"This statement was successful, tasking Presidents Von Der Leyen and Michel as well as the Eurogroups with taking action"

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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"The third phase endorsed our road maps as well as the Eurogroup's work on safety nets. We then set the task to the @EU_Commission to combine the MFF with a Recovery Fund"

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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"The question was then not if there would be a Recovery Fund, but what it would look like. This culminated in the famous 5-night meeting at the @EUCouncil

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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"We have to be modest. This is a one-off initiative for the time being. There is no guarantee of unanimity and ratification. We should stay realistic"

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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"We have hit a roadblock: the conditionality element, ensuring that the money is spent in context of rule of law. Two partners do not like this"

- Jim Cloos, Director-General, Secretariat of the EU Council of Ministers (@EUCouncil)

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After Jim Cloos has set the scene, we now move on toe @IAIonline's @Poli_Eleonora, who will focus on socio-economic challenges ahead including the threat of populism

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"If there is any positive side to the horrific #COVID19 crisis, it is that the Institutions have been able to find a degree os plans that go beyond the minimum common denominator"

- @Poli_Eleonora from @IAIonline

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"You can say that solidarity among European countries exists. When the pandemic hit, you could see that this was an unprecedented crisis, and therefore the EU Member States began to act appropriately"

- @Poli_Eleonora from @IAIonline

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"These plans represent a solid basis for a new European model. #NextGenerationEU and other plans can be effective depending on several factors: the amount of time it will take Member States to agree, their capability to implement, and more"

- @Poli_Eleonora from @IAIonline

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"We cannot build a common new European model without common values: democracy, rights, rule of law"

- @Poli_Eleonora from @IAIonline

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"We have seen how much national egoism has blocked the rest of Europe"

- @Poli_Eleonora from @IAIonline

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"The socio-economic consequences are universal, even if some countries have been hit to vary degrees by the virus itself"

- @Poli_Eleonora from @IAIonline

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"Unemployment, for instance, which hits youth especially, as well as the gender gap. We should be working together to resolve these common problems"

- @Poli_Eleonora from @IAIonline

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"The majority of the citizenry do still believe in the European Union. But we should look at the 30% or so who don't. This is where populist parties will court their support"

- @Poli_Eleonora from @IAIonline

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"Look at America: #Trump lost the election, but he still has a significant minority supporting him. The same is true in Europe"

- @Poli_Eleonora from @IAIonline

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On this note, our moderator @MichaelKaeding from @unidue passes the floor to @iprinova's Carlos Gaspar

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"The Recovery Plan is remarkable: most of all I stress that the Institutions were able to speed up their response, which contrasts very much with previous crises"

- Carlos Gaspar from @iprinova

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"In this process, Germany consolidated it's position as a central power in the EU, but it alone is not able to overcome divisions between North and South, East and West. Germany's capacity as a balancing force is being put to the test"

- Carlos Gaspar from @iprinova

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"If everything goes well, this plan will go a long towards restoring confidence in and commitment to the European Institutions and containing populism and anti-EU forces, a key issue in the post-#COVID19 era"

- Carlos Gaspar from @iprinova

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"Three trends have been accelerated by #COVID19: the strengthening of European Integration, the comeback of the European Union, but also the comeback of the national state"

- Carlos Gaspar from @iprinova

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On that note, @MichaelKaeding has opened the floor to questions. We really enjoyed our initial contributions from @EUCouncil's Jim Cloos, @IAIonline's @Poli_Eleonora, and @iprinova's Carlos Gaspar

Make sure you get your questions in to the chair!!

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Our speakers are dealing with questions on a number of questions, primarily focussed around the key conflict of European #COVID19 decision-making: the lack of European competencies in health policy

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After a dynamic Q&A session, @MichaelKaeding reminds us of the role of Member States not only in shaping EU politics, but also in implementing these politics, and that Euroscepticism may be concealed by #COVID19 priorities, but it will be back

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On this note, our moderator @MichaelKaeding (@unidue) closes our second Plenary Session at #PPCLisbon
Thanks to Jim Cloos of the @EUCouncil, @Poli_Eleonora from @IAIonline, and Carlos Gaspar from @iprinova

Tune back in at 15:00 CET for this afternoon's Parallel Sessions!

/ENDS

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